Monday, May 3, 2010

A man is literally what he thinks - James Allen

Hi there everyone,
I'm not sure if you've seen a so called "literal music video" or not so I'll post an example below.
After seeing this video I thought it would be fun to try it.
It seems much more difficult than it is - in fact all you need is a movie maker programme like Windows Movemaker, Real player and a microphone.
All you need to do is
  • download the video you want to make to your computer.
  • Get your students to watch it and brainstorm their ideas.
  • Re-write the lyrics and synch them so they fit the original lyrics
  • Put the video on the movie maker
  • Add subtitles with the new lyrics
  • Lower the volume of the original song
  • Practice practice and practice some more :)
  • Record over your new lyrics
  • And you're done!
Word of warning though - it's a LONG project to do - you are going to need at least 5 hours of class time to do it effectively. So you need lots of time and patience (I also brought chocolate brownies to class for some added motivation).

So here's an example of a "professional" one from Youtube.
Enjoy

"Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale of all". Hans Christian Andersen

Last week I was substituting a class who had been learning a bit about Wallace and Gromit previously. Their teacher told me I could do whatever I wanted with them...so after some pondering I decided that we would make a storyboard for a music video.

I started the class by showing them a video clip from Youtube for a new Wallmart advert , after watching the storyboard we then watched the "real" clip of the advert (sorry about the poor quality). After atching the two versions we compared the differences and similiarities between the two.

After this, we focussed on some filming vocabulary, like "zoom", "close up" and so on. To highlight the meaning of the words, the students, using a camcorder, practised "doing" the filming of this specific vocab.

Once the students were ok using all the new words, I put them in groups of three. In their groups, they had to brainstorm ideas for a story - basic plot, characters, timeline and so on. When they had the plot outline ready, I then gave them big sheets of paper to draw the 6 most important scenes of their story as a storyboard, highlighting the camera movement and angles.

Following on from this, the students had to present their stories to the rest of the class, explain how the final version would look.

For homework, each group had to decide on and agree to a song that would appropriately fit their story.

The final (and most fun) part came next. Each group had to make a powerpoint animated music video to match their storyboard and add the song to the background!

Try it out - not only is it really fun but also it raises imaginations and gives way to multiple intelligences in your class :)